Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... procured--the transport had not come up the previous night owing to the retiral. It was impossible to make dry shelters owing to the soaking condition of everything. All that day the rain continued and no orders of any sort came from Head-quarters. Chilled to the bone they enviously listened to the rattle of fire from the trenches where the Oxford Foot were blazing at German patrols who had come forward to reconnoitre. The Oxfords had some excitement at least to help them to forget their misery. When the rations arrived that night they chewed biscuits and cold bully-beef. No fires could be lit, so no warm drink of any sort could be prepared. The rain still descended in sheets. The long, weary hours of darkness were passed somehow, and at length morning dawned. With it the rain stopped, and about eleven o'clock the sun shone. The Highland Rifles could have fallen down and worshipped it. Haggard, unkempt, shivering, unshaven, they set about making themselves shelters by scooping out holes with their entrenching tools and roofing them over with branches intertwined into a sort of caravan hood and spreading the floors with sticks covered by waterproof sheets. Tommy is an adaptable animal, and necessity is the mother of invention. By eventide the wood was a maze of dug-outs, and in the comparative silence of the night the wearied Highlanders slept in peace. 11 The following day was one of cloudless sunshine, and its hours were utilised in the strengthening and improving of the newly made dwellings. With coats off and shirt sleeves rolled up, the Highland Rifles cheerfully toiled like navvies. The old plans of Lennox Wood were reproduced in Chateau Wood. By twelve o'clock the C.O.'s dug-out was not only complete in every respect, but had its garden in...show more